1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to spine boards used for carrying persons usually in emergency situations. More particularly, this invention relates to a light-weight, foam-filled, thermoplastic spine board with a number of features attractive to firefighters, emergency medical service (EMS) personnel, lifeguards, and the like. Still more particularly, this invention relates to such a spine board, sometimes referred to as a back board, with a plurality of features and a method for making the same.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
A number of stretcher-like structures are known in the art for transporting persons in distress caused by trauma, injuries, catastrophic illness, or the like. In such emergency situations, the time between the situation and diagnosis and/or treatment is essential. Therefore, it is a concern for such patient-transporting structures to attend to minute detail with an eye toward saving time.
Known are back boards having a patient portion, or spine boards, with a variety of carriers for manually grasping hand holds for the spine boards and transporting the patient from an emergency site to a rescue vehicle, for example. One such type of spine board, with a plurality of hand holds and a neck restraining device, usually referred to as a head immobilizer, is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,630,393. A feature for newly-emerging improved spine boards that would be desirable is an ability to adapt existing head immobilizers currently known to the market.
Some spine boards known to the art are made of wood. However, those boards are sometimes not satisfactory because of their tendency to chip and splinter in rough handling, thus increasing the possibility for further injury to a patient. More importantly, with the rise in a risk of serious infectious disease from the unintended transfer of body fluids from one patient to another, wood is losing its favor as product suitable for manufacture. Wood, in its worst scenario, can become a carrier for such infectious pathogens from a first patient to a second patient using the same carrier without any knowledge or awareness for the second patient.
Efforts to make such spine boards from plastic have not been totally successful because of a need for lateral and longitudinal strength to handle heavy patients, perhaps up to about 600 pounds. In addition, provision must be made in such plastic spine boards to insure buoyancy. In general, the interior of such plastic spine boards is not filled, to preserve buoyancy.
An apparent known method of making such a plastic spine board includes a step of making individual parts of plastic and assembling such parts. This method is labor intensive and costly, while risking inadvertent disassembly during emergency usage. Another apparent known method includes a step of molding a plastic in a suitable shape to form a board-like structure. But no effort is made to insure structural integrity, buoyancy, and an absence of infectious growth sites.
Thus, it is an overall object of this invention to provide an improved spine board with a number of ergonomic features attractive to firefighters, emergency medical service (EMS) providers, and others, such as are explained further in this disclosure. Moreover, a method of making such a spine board is also disclosed.